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**Universities should refrain from taking sides in polarising debates, Wits dean argues—others disagree**
As geopolitical tensions rise worldwide, South African academics have clashed over whether universities should take sides in conflicts.
In a commentary published in the March/April issue of the South African Journal of Science, Nithaya Chetty, the dean of science at the University of the Witwatersrand, writes that universities should refrain from taking official standpoints in polarising debates to “preserve academic integrity”.
However, in the same issue of SAJS, other academics vehemently oppose Chetty’s argument, which centres around the Israel-Palestine conflict. One paper, authored by researchers from the universities of the Witwatersrand, Cape Town, Pretoria and Stellenbosch, says that remaining neutral on human rights violations can lead to a loss of moral authority.
“Public universities in South Africa have an obligation to serve the public good,” they write. While they admit that the definition of ‘public good’ can be subject to debate, it should include an obligation to align with the human rights framework of South Africa’s constitution.
Jonathan Jansen, an education policy expert at Stellenbosch University and former president of the Academy of Science of South Africa, argues in another response to Chetty that universities are, “by their very nature, political and not neutral”.
Citing the scores of people reported to have been killed in Gaza since the recent hostilities began, he adds: “A university that stays silent in the face of such a staggering loss of human life would have to revisit their mission statements, which often include commitments to social justice.”
**Academia ‘not value-free’**
In another response to Chetty’s commentary, Ashraf Kagee and Shuaib Manjra from the universities of Stellenbosch and Cape Town, respectively, argue that academic neutrality cannot exist in light of human rights violations, writing that neither science nor academia are value-free.
“Rather than places of neutrality, universities in all places should be front and centre in support of human rights and academic freedom, and consequently should stand in solidarity with Palestinian universities, scholars and students,” they write.
In his commentary, Chetty remains concerned about South African universities “breaking” if they take polarised stances on contentious geopolitical issues. “There needs to be a clearer distinction between political discourse and intellectual discourse, between activism and action,” he writes.
“If we cannot distinguish between these very carefully, it will spell the end of our universities as we know them.”